dad

Monday, June 16, 2014

I struggle with how to bring my father into my childrens' lives, since he died almost nine years ago, two weeks before my wedding, years before they were born. Now that Helene is old enough, and congnizant enough, I have to remember to tell her stories, because my father had some great ones. He grew up in such a different time and place than our current reality: he was born in 1927 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was really still the Wild West. He grew up roaming the outdoors, hunting before school, getting kicked out of class for smelling like the skunk he'd hunted in the dawn. I'm sure he exasperated my petite, neat Gram, tracking dirt into her pristine little house, bringing unruly, but lovable dogs home to terrorize her yard.

I told Helene this story the other day, before her first camping trip, because it just seemed right. It's one of my favorites about my dad.

The Camp Robbers

A lifelong outdoorsman, it was only natural that my father went to forestry school at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. He attended college on the GI Bill, after serving briefly in the Air Force (then the Army Air Corps) during World War II and being honorably discharged.

Upon graduation, one of his first working gigs was as a fire tower attendant somewhere in the Colorado Rockies. His job was to sit in that fire tower and watch for smoke. He'd be out there at the fire tower for 10 days to two weeks at a time. Alone. Fire watching is not the most exciting job, and there can be a lot of idle time to fill. But my father was never someone to be bored, especially when all of the great outdoors was present for entertainment purposes.

With many years spent outdoors, hunting and camping, my father was an accomplished camp cook. He knew what you could pack, catch, hunt, and cook over an open flame in a cast iron pan. An easy staple of camping is pancakes. Flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, a little oil, an egg, a hot pan, and you're in business.

Out in the Western mountains, there lives a particular type of blue jay known as a camp robber. These jays are large, loud, aggressive, and not at all shy about invading your camp and making off with anything shiny or tasty. They can really be pests if they happen to latch on to your campsite.

As I mentioned, my dad had a lot of time on his hands while on fire tower duty. So, he started to play a game with the camp robbers.

He'd get up in the morning, brew some coffee, and wait for the jays to get curious, landing nearby, squawking, and focusing their beady little black eyes on my dad and his cookware. My dad would stoke the fire, getting the grill, a hot cast iron pan, and the pancake mix ready. One the pan was hot, he started pouring the batter in and making pancakes.

First, he did little silver dollar sized pancakes, setting them nearby, and the jays started snatching them almost as quick as he could get them out of the pan. They'd grab them in their claws and make off, triumphant. And then, of course, they would come back, because my dad was still cooking. Each round of pancakes got progressively larger: saucer-sized, bread-plate sized, and the camp robbers still greedily snatched them up and carried them off. But as the pancakes got bigger, the snatching got slower, the pumping of wings was harder, and the camp robbers got quieter, apparently needing their breath to carry off their increasingly-heavy spoils.

My dad just wanted to see how big of a pancake those camp robbers could, and would carry off. Finally, he got to the largest, thickest cakes of all - the full size of his big cast-iron skillet, and an inch thick. Plop, out of the pan it went, on a rock. And down came a big, fat, bold, dusty-blue camp robber, siezing that giant prize in his claws, and trying to take off. And trying. Flapping his wings, clawing into the pancake again, almost visibly huffing and puffing, barely clearing the ground, the pancake dragging along behind.

The camp robbers had gotten their come-uppance for being greedy, in the form of a giant flapjack, and my father laughed himself into breathlessness, watching the now-tired camp robber still trying to flap off with his prize.

No, my father was never bored.

One of my favorite photos of me & my dad. I was about 4, so this is probably in 1977. We're riding a friend's horses.